Opinion
No. 2012AP2738–CR.
2014-06-10
STATE of Wisconsin, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. Donald Ray MICHAEL, Defendant–Respondent.
Majority, ¶ 6. But, as we have seen, the police-department computer-assisted-dispatch report verified that Cassandra Davis had identified Michael as the shooter from the start. I do not see, and the Majority does not explain, how the impeachment of Detective McCrary's memory would have bolstered Michael's case in any way. Indeed, Michael's trial lawyer testified at the postconviction hearing that he knew of the dispatch report, recognized that it “cut both ways” because it bolstered Cassandra Davis's testimony but that he might have used it in his cross-examination of Detective McCrary but forgot to do so. So what? Michael was fully able to tell the jury that he was en route to the hospital at the time of the shooting but never got there because he was alerted that he was wanted as a suspect in the shooting. The police-department computer-assisted-dispatch report is both consistent with his theory, and also with the State's theory; impeachment of Detective McCrary would not have added anything to the mix. Michael has not come anywhere close to satisfying his Strickland -prejudice burden.